Do you know how healthy you are? Is your diet healthy? Do you regularly exercise?
These are just some of the questions for which most people answer no. With this in mind, it should be no surprise to see that over 70 percent of Americans are overweight or obese.
Good health is so much more than just exercising and eating healthy. It is also related to your attitude, the self-image you have, and living an overall healthy lifestyle. With this in mind, here are some great tips to live a much healthier lifestyle.
Drink More Water
The truth is most people from around the world do not drink as much water as they should. This is really bad since water is vital for us. We need it to help all our organs function. Basically, our body needs water to remove waste, carry nutrients, oxygen, and carry out all functions.
Water is lost every single day through bowel movements, urine, breathing, and perspiration. That is why we need to constantly replenish water intake. Also, when we drink as much water as the body needs, we lose weight faster.
How much water we need is different from one individual to the next. It is influenced by physical activity, weight, and humidity. Also, food intake is contributing around 20% of fluid intake.
If you do not know when you drank water the last time, there is a pretty good possibility you are already dehydrated.
Sleep As Much As Your Body Needs
If you do not rest well, there is a pretty good possibility you will end up eating more. In many cases, you will eat junk food. By simply getting enough rest you do not end up snacking more to remain away. In addition, when you lack sleep, you can be sure you will prematurely age. And you surely do not want that to happen.
Consider Meditation
There are numerous benefits of meditation so if you can use it, there is a good possibility it will improve your health. The great thing about it is that meditation is unique to the individual so you will most likely find something that works for you. Just give it a try.
Exercise
Movement is a part of life. We now know that daily exercising is highly beneficial for our health. It increases our lifespan, increases bone density, lowers disease risks, and helps with weight loss. You need to increase daily activity, which can be something as simple as walking instead of taking the bus or as complex as starting a very complex workout routine.
The thing is, you have to pick exercises that you actually enjoy. Practicing a sport you enjoy means you will naturally be inclined to do it. Exercising is so much more about pushing your body and suffering. It is all about having fun and being healthy. Also, adding variations to exercises will help a lot since it will make things interesting.
Speaking about working out, make sure you target multiple body parts. Doing only cardio, which is so often recommended, is a bad idea. Your body needs a proper workout. This means you should seriously consider activities like hiking, trekking, tennis, basketball, swimming, yoga, frisbee, badminton, and squash.
Eat More Fruits
Fruits are great for your body since they are packed with minerals and vitamins. For instance, by simply eating more oranges you gain more benefits than taking vitamin C pills.
It is highly recommended that you consume as much of the minerals and vitamins the body needs through the diet you consume instead of pills. Some of the most nutritious fruits to consider are bananas, papayas, strawberries, kiwis, blackberries, blueberries, watermelons, raspberries, mangos, pomelos, grapefruits, apples, peaches, honeydews, oranges, and rockmelons.
Eat More Vegetables
In vegetables, you can find several minerals and nutrients, like vitamin K, vitamin A, folate, potassium, manganese, and folate. Also, you receive a lot of dietary fiber, which is great for proper gut health.
2 types of vegetables exist:
- Starchy vegetables – this includes pumpkin, yam, sweet potatos, and potatos.
- Non-starchy vegetables – this includes arugula, kale, broccoli, long beans, brussels sprouts, spinach, arugula, tomato, long beans, and mushrooms (which are technically a fungus).
We have to mention that there are also vegetables that are just slightly starch so they can be considered to be right in the middle. This includes green peas, corn, artichoke, cauliflower, beans, beetroot, and carrots.
Reduce Consumption Of Processed Foods
You need to reduce consumption of processed foods because:
- During processing, most nutrients are lost.
- Such foods include added preservatives that are bad for health.
It is enough to mention that most processed foods include high quantities of salt. This can lead to heart disease and higher blood pressure.
Generally, when there are more ingredients included in foods, they are more processed. Less processed foods are just better.
Practice Self-Love
If you want to live a truly healthy life, you need to practice self-love. If your self-image is negative, your mental outlook will be weighed down.
Keep in mind that practicing self-love also involves removing the negative people from your life. Healthy life includes positive mental health. Toxic people can only damage you. This is why you need to remove those that are overly negative or critical.
Avoid The Trigger Foods
These are foods that make you binge. Unfortunately, trigger foods can be quite different for different people. Usually, they are things like chips, pastries, doughnuts, chocolate, cookies, candy bars, and practically anything that includes high quantities of flour, salt, and sugar. Such foods are very bad since they create high blood sugar imbalance. This only leads to forcing you to eat more. Identify your trigger foods and simply remove them from what you eat on a day-to-day basis to have a much healthier life.
Deal With Emotional Eating Issues
When you are frustrated, stressed, or bored, do you eat? Emotional eating is very damaging and it is practically eating to help you with an emotion, not hunger. Unfortunately, this will never make you happy since what you try to fill is not a lack of food. You will not get happiness or love from food. Unfortunately, the only thing that you can actually do is to find the real issues you have and deal with them.
Reduce Sugary Drinks And Foods
Sugary foods include pastries, cakes, cookies, candy bars, and so on. These do not fill you and they make you eat more because you will be affected by sugar rush. Consuming such foods from time to time is not a problem but you should never do this daily.
The alternative is choosing healthy snacks.
The exact same goes for sugary drinks. They are accessible to us literally everywhere. Where can you not find sweet drinks and sodas? Remove all of these since they will cause weight gain and are very unhealthy. The best thing you can do is to go for green tea, vegetable juices, and, of course, plain water.